


Nessun Grado di Separazione

by despairingdignities, Fandomfishie (SvenskaFishes)



Series: The Eurovision Part of Town [10]
Category: Eurovision Song Contest RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 19:44:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9008515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/despairingdignities/pseuds/despairingdignities, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SvenskaFishes/pseuds/Fandomfishie
Summary: Once you’re a regular at Douwe Bob’s bar, you’re immediately considered part of the Bar Squad Family. And once you’re part of the Bar Squad Family, there’s a whole group of friends who’ll do anything to make you happy. It can be a protective little circle; for Debrah Scarlett, that normally works out just fine.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The usual EPOT disclaimers apply to this fic - especially the one about not sending these to anyone involved in Eurovision, especially one of the artists.

The evenings are when Douwe’s bar really comes alive. When it hits about seven-ish, the lights are lowered a bit, glowing a warm yellow-orange as the sun slowly falls, and the regulars start to congregate at the tables. Douwe wipes down a few glasses, watching from the corner of his eye. Francesca and Debrah are side-by-side, and Amir lounges on the bench across from them with an easy grin. Sergey observes from the corner, ever-protective of his pool table, but listening in all the same.

They come here to share stories, commiserate or celebrate together. It may have been Francesca who originally called it that, cheerfully ordering another round of drinks one night for her “bar squad!”. Since then, the name stuck, at least amongst them.

Debrah is an on-again-off-again member, mostly there to share stories of misery and loneliness. Every time she breaks up, she’s here to drown her sorrows and talk to anyone who will listen. Along the way, she’s found a sort of ragtag family.

This night seems no different, except instead of the usual melancholy she has a grin inching its way across her face. It’s warm and bright and completely unfamiliar to the bar squad, who give each other side-eyed glances full of confusion when she looks away.

It’s got a mischievous quality to it that none of them have really seen; almost like she’s planning something. But there’s not a nervous mood in the room. The happiness of each other, especially this _new_ warmth, proves entirely infectious.

“I have a friend coming,” Debrah rests her chin on her hand for a moment, smiling at Amir. “You probably won’t be expecting them, but, you know. I haven’t seen them so happy in a while, so I thought it was a good night for it. If there’s ever a good night for it.”

Amir shrugs, and smiles back. “Well, it’s good to see you happy, Debrah Scarlett, I do have to say. Will we be singing tonight? I know you do like it.” He passes Debrah her drink once Douwe’s done filling the glass. “Have I met this friend of yours, or are they new to these parts?”

The redhead chews thoughtfully on her lip. What can she say? _I invited my ex to sing with me_ might not go down so well with Amir, who was very well known to hold a grudge. Especially against Mørland, after he’d seen Debrah downcast on many consecutive night.

Francesca nudges the redhead encouragingly, a light poke with her elbow. “C’mon Debrah. It’s not like we’ll get _jealous_ of you having other friends! Friends are good, everyone knows that. But you’ve got to fill your bar squad in on the details? Is it a guy, is it a girl, do they identify as neither? What’s their name and what do they like to drink?”

After a moment of hesitation, Debrah decides how she wants to play this and grins, and nudges her back. “You’ll see.” She punctuates it with a wink and takes another sip of her drink. She’s rarely felt this giddy before, and not for a long time.

Francesca folds her arms and sighs dramatically, shaking her head. “You’re no fun,” she complains, “Nobody can ever get any secrets out of you. It’s not even fair.” She’d always found that Debrah could be a little withdrawn, except when she _wanted_ you to know something.

Leaning in conspiratorially, Debrah pauses just a few centimetres from Francesca’s ear. “Just because I suck at keeping _other_ people’s secrets…” As if there is nothing foreboding at all about that statement, she leans back out, flashing Francesca another grin, leaving her friend at least a _little_ perplexed.

“Well,” Amir cuts in, “I for one am glad to meet whoever-it-is, whenever they get here. Any friend of yours is a friend of mine, Deb.”

 _I hope you still think that in a few minutes,_ Debrah thinks again, nervously, hiding her mouth with her glass so he can’t see the way her lips twitched.

Before she can find the words to say something that sounds at least mildly confident, about how great they are and what-have-you, the door creaks open slowly. Sergey shifts a little further down the pool table to see the figure at the door - and if you watch, you can see his smile slowly slide off his face and be replaced with a look all the others knew well.

Debrah spends a good twenty seconds deliberately appearing to be very invested in her drink. This was not the moment she’d been hoping for him to slip in, but, she’d take what she could get. “Hey,” she says, lifting her head a little to look at him, “late as ever, I see.”

Sergey’s expression is cold and calculating, judging. Angry.

Francesca stands up and goes to Sergey’s side for a moment, laying a hand on his shoulder. “C’mon Serge. No need to make the guy more nervous than he already must be,” she whispers, as low as she can. But still, despite her neutral disposition, she discloses something she’s been thinking. It’s not something she often does, but this - this is an extraordinary occasion. “Can you believe she brought _him?”_

Amir turns around in his seat, because nothing in his mind is quite clicking yet. He isn’t familiar with the man standing there. Nothing about him is particularly striking. “Okay, uh, what’s going on? Who is this?”

Her breath is gone, Debrah finds. Was this a good idea? She can’t exactly just say _“so, you know that ex I’ve been crying over for the past forever? Yeah, that’s him, we’re cool.”_ Can she?

Because Debrah couldn’t seem to find the words to say, Francesca moves over again. “That’s _him_ Amir. _Mørland.”_

“C’mon then, don’t stand there in the doorway forever,” Debrah finally rises from her chair and pulls him into the room. “What do you want to do? Catch your death from pneumonia?”

The realization, for Amir, is like a punch to the stomach. All the nights that Debrah has sat in that very seat and sobbed her heart out, all the nights of commiseration and cursing this very man with their glasses raised high-

-and Mørland’s here. Now. And they’re sharing smiles like they’re the only two people on earth. And Sergey looks fit to murder. And Amir has a grudge the size of Mount Everest.

For what feels like a hundred dreadful nights, Amir has taken a melancholic Debrah by the hand, dragged her reluctantly out of her seat and onto the small karaoke stage, and queued up the most upbeat songs he could think of. They sang together, sang their hearts out, and their voices might not have matched but the _energy_ and the _life_ he saw in her then was more important than any amount of perfect harmonizing. And whenever Debrah sings, she glows like the sun.

Debrah has been hurt by this man more times than Amir can count, but right now they’re holding hands like none of it ever happened.

He plasters on his fakest, most sickly-sweet smile. “Hey, it’s good to meet you, man. I’m Amir.” His handshake is firmer than it should be, he knows by the sudden strain in Mørland’s friendly grin. Then Amir lets his voice go low and cold, _“I’ve heard a lot about you.”_

Francesca interrupts, then, high and fast and that’s how Amir knows she’s anxious and trying to defuse the situation. She sticks a hand between the two and shoulders her way in. “And I’m Francesca! Good to finally meet you, good… we...” She stutters a bit, hands fluttering, and then, “Debrah didn’t say she’d be bringing you here.” She says it as inoffensively as possible, but there’s still a hint of accusation.

Sergey chalks his cue tip like he’s sharpening a knife.

“Guys, cut it out.” Debrah wraps an arm around Mørland’s side. “I invited him here because I wanted him to meet all of you. We’re doing… really well lately, actually, and I thought it would be nice.” She turns to look at him, and he looks at her, and they both practically glow with affection. She leans up against his shoulder and his eyes soften and it’s so frustratingly sweet that Amir wants to throw up.

Francesca claps a hand to her mouth. “Oh!” She gasps in realization and delight.

The atmosphere changes slightly in the bar, a shifting of mood. Once Francesca removes her palm, you’d find a lamp-like grin has been hidden behind it. The tension in Debrah’s body relaxes somewhat, garnering enough confidence for her to pull him into a seat.

A voice none of them have ever even _heard_ escapes Debrah Scarlett’s mouth as she speaks to Mørland now. A low, reassuring, gentle tone completed by so much warmth and happiness you’d think she would be drained of it all. It occurs to _some_ of the Bar Squad then that that might just be it. Debrah devotes all her warmth and care to him whenever they’re doing well...so when they’re not, she has none left for herself.

“Hey,” she says to him, squeezing his hand under the table, “I’d imagined far worse scenarios, I...think this is one of the good ones. You’ll have to get back to me on that though. _Please_ for the love of all that is holy, tell me you remembered the guitar.”

He grasps her hand in return, clearly grateful for the comfort. “Of course I did, honey,” he assures her, sparing a glance out at the bar squad, “i’ve got the car parked out back.”

Then he freezes, stock still, and the smile slips right off his face.

“...you did leave the guitar in the trunk after this weekend, right?” He asks her slowly, a dawning panic behind his eyes. “I just assumed, which, I realize now is-”

She pulls out of his grip to put her face in her hands. “Mørland,” she sighs. Francesca’s expression falls.

The crack of the balls on the pool table are loud enough to make several of them flinch. Everybody looks over to see Sergey slowly, ominously straightening up from taking the shot, gaze trained on Mørland with a laser-like focus.

But Amir is watching Debrah, whose smile is still warm and bright, and she still looks at Mørland like he hung the moon, and leans into him adoringly, and it’s so wrong and it burns. She’s his friend. She doesn’t deserve this.

...but does she deserve to have a good time, tonight, with Mørland of all people?

His stomach falls. His conscience sings wrongwrongwrong. But he takes a breath. “I have my guitar with me.”

Her face lights up a little more. “Thank you, Amir!” She is stuck on Mørland’s sun chariot, if he was Phaethon; it’s been made clear enough with her constant, indiscriminate takings-back.

“Yeah, um, thanks,” says Mørland, managing a smile. He was still quite unnerved by a few of Debrah’s friends because of their...initial reactions. But she’s beaming at him, and she’s completely relaxed, so he must be okay at least.

Amir is quick to make his feelings known. He turns slowly, deliberately. “I’m doing this for her. Not you. You remember that.”

Mørland swallows and nods. Why are all of Debrah’s friends so intimidating? But her touch on the back of his neck brings him back around to her, and her smile, and the softness of her hands, and then she stands up and-

“So, you guys want to get started?” She suggests. He grabs her glass and downs the rest of her drink to take the edge off and stands. He gravitates toward her like the moon around the earth, all the way to the stage, where she waits, one hand curled gently around a microphone.

Amir pauses, hesitates, reconsiders. Then he goes to grab his guitar from the back storage room.

“I promise they’re not always like this,” Debrah’s voice has this kind of height to it, perhaps anxiety. “They’re usually...really great. I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting…” She trails off to consider exactly what she was expecting. “But this is gonna be fun. I promise you that.”

Her head is a little weight on his shoulder for the briefest moment. And he relaxes, smiles. “Yeah. It’ll be fun.”

“Just...don’t do anything to Amir’s guitar. He might already want to kill you, and, I don’t _really_ want a murder charge on his head. He’s done a lot of things for me, you know?” She lifts her head a little to smile at him, not really considering that it would have been more romantic to have addressed the fact that he would have wound up _dead_ before being worried about her friend being a murderer.

“I can’t believe you really think I’d break his guitar. You’re the clumsy one of us, not me,” he reminds her, with a nudge. And she collapses into his arms, laughing into his shoulder. Clinging to his torso just so she doesn’t actually hit the floor. “Are you sure you aren’t drunk yet?”

She tips her chin up a little bit, she’s flushed with the amusement of it all. It’s clear she’s doing her best to look reproachful - but she’s just so _happy,_ radiating it, that she can’t. “Would I get drunk without you, my prince?” The answer is yes, but _he_ didn’t have to know that. Sometimes he just makes her feel like a child again. Silly secret-keeping and nicknames are just a part of that.

“I don’t know, but you apparently hang out in a _bar,_ so.” He huffs out a laugh. They cling together on the stage until Amir comes up, guitar in hand, and then they unsteadily untangle. Debrah reaches back for her microphone. Mørland reaches down to the guitar in Amir’s hands.

Amir tries to convey all his loathing and distrust in a single look as he carefully hands it over.

While the silent altercation goes on, Debrah realises that some of her hair is stuck to Mørland’s jacket, which she pries off with a laugh. “Guess I just didn’t want to let you go,” she jokes, flashing a thankful smile Amir’s way.

Amir tries to smile back and thinks he might have succeeded.

Mørland breathes, trying to banish the tension and guilt in his chest. He runs his fingers over the unfamiliar guitar, trying to get a feel for it. He glances at Debrah, nods, and strums.

It’s easy to ignore the judgemental nature of her friends earlier, for now. When she sings, she finds her own little world. And when it’s with _him_ nobody else even exists, not anymore. She lets out a long breath and pulls her hands from where they had rested at her sides. Once they’ve begun all else is lost. If it was possible for her face to light up anymore, it does now.

This is _her element._

But then Mørland opens his mouth too and their voices blend into a seamless harmony. The song soars up and up and up and crashes down like waves against the seashore.

Amir’s jaw drops. Francesca vibrates in her seat. Douwe almost drops whatever he’s pouring to turn and stare. Because they’re perfect together.

It’s almost sad that a pair who can create something so _beautiful_ are so _broken._

Amir has never seen Debrah shine so brightly. She’s like the sun. There are no tear tracks down her face tonight, and she stands tall, shoulders back, chest out with confidence like she owns the world.

(She’s still shorter than Mørland though, and he’ll never let her forget it. Not even now.)

Music is life, here. It’s the beat of your heart, the way you live, how you feel. Who you interact with. Why you do what you do. To sing together is one thing, certainly, it’s bonding and friendship and togetherness. But to harmonize? To blend your voices so beautifully that they produce a greater, more vibrant whole? To the point where it’s hard to tell where one voice ends and the other begins...

That’s a sign that it’s meant to be.

They’re truly in sync, Amir realizes. He shivers like he’s been doused with cold water. Francesca, on the other hand, is bouncing with joy. She’s got her phone out and is carefully recording everything.

Maybe next time everything tumbles, Francesca can remind Debrah of what the good times were like, maybe even make her smile. Once you’ve become one entity like that, there’s no way out of it. The whole of the Eurovision Part of Town has basically accepted that this cycle is never ending - but the Bar Squad? They understand it a little bit more.

Sergey takes a seat next to Amir, abruptly. They share a look. “It’s definitely love,” Sergey admits hesitantly. You can’t argue with the music. It doesn’t work like that.

Amir pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yeah,” he reluctantly agrees. The song swells and falls around them. He’s… he’s proud of Debrah. For finding someone who can sing with her like this. He can’t stop wishing she’d found someone who could treat her better, because she deserves the world, but…

Maybe Mørland isn’t so bad. Not right now, not when they’re together and going strong and they obviously love each other.

Amir waits until Mørland’s looking out over the bar and deliberately meets his eyes. Once he’s sure Mørland will see, he slowly raises his glass and nods. _I’m still watching you,_ he thinks to himself.

Debrah notices, too. Her friends’ approval means _everything._ If they think everything might be okay, maybe she can believe it herself. When you truly believe in something…it’s that much easier to keep it together. This love hasn’t felt so effortless in a long time. The two of them are just floating on the rising, falling waves of their heartsong.

When _heartsongs_ meld, it’s something special. Everyone in the Eurovision Part of Town knows everyone has their own distinct one that _defines_ them. The story that they want to tell, their purpose here. So when two become one, your purpose here becomes _each other,_ their presence is what keeps you rooted here. Such is the reason why couples hardly ever leave; the locals wonder how Elina Born bears the ache.

It draws to its close gracefully, and she’s still smiling, exploding with it all. Anyone can tell that there’s nobody else in this town filled to the brim with musical talent Debrah would rather have at her side.

“I saw that silent short joke you were making the whole time,” she says, pulling her hair out of her eyes. “Do me a favour and never make it again. Else you’ll start sounding like my dad, and we don’t want that.”

Debrah stops quite deliberately in front of Amir, and Mørland hands his guitar back. She laces her hands behind her back, and has that _grin_ of expectation. “So…”

“I still like you better,” Amir surmises, slinging his guitar across his back. “But he’s okay. And he’s right for you, I’ll give him that.”

Mørland glances at her confusedly, and a slight smirk spreads across her lips.

“That’s a glowing review from Amir,” she says, and it sets the whole bar alive with laughter.


End file.
